itsallovernow | I'm All Over the Place Today

I rarely use the bullet point feature, however:

* My mother has inexplicably fallen in love with Bare Naked Ladies. One would have to know my mother to appreciate the adoration. (Actually, one would have to know her very nice boyfriend who has TERRIBLE taste in music, and believes that Jazz and Soft Jazz are the same thing. Fortunately, my mother always has songs going on in her head and tunes it out. She takes advantage of the gigantic speakers and sophisticated soundsystem he has purchased for this terrible music to try and kill the neighbors with sonic vibrations. Currently, she has been attempting this via Janis Joplin, and the Indigo Girls cover of "Midnight Train to Georgia." The neighbors are, understandably, less than thrilled.)

* There's a section in Skinny Legs and All where Ellen Cherry Charles talks about giving up her artistic ambitions (largely because her husband has surpassed her in terms of artistic recognition for having converted their Airstream trailer into a giant traveling Turkey), and instead has decided to be the best waitress she can be. It's one of those lovely moments of looking at work, at vocation and avocation, and choosing the former. The choice doesn't last, but it's something I think of frequently, struggling to make myself put in the time and discipline of being a writer when it isn't my primary means of employment.

* I have a drabble in my head that I need to shape a little more before it because words on the page that's about family and home, about the expectations of such. And it makes me think of what we, as a culture, value as important, about the time and energy and sheer effort put into things that are entertaining, and yet don't (yet) serve any sort of exploratory value, which leads me to thinking of one of my favorite West Wing moments from Gallileo:

SAM
There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry because we
went to the moon. None of them are colder, and certainly none of them are dumber ‘cause we
went to the moon.

MALLORY
And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?

SAM
Yes.

MALLORY
Why?

SAM
‘Cause it’s next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire.
And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of
man is hung on the timeline of exploration, and this is what’s next.

MALLORY
I know.

SAM
People like you, who say that... [beat] What?

MALLORY
I said I know. We’re supposed to be explorers.

SAM
Then what the hell?

MALLORY
I just want to hear you talk about it.

SAM
You know something?

MALLORY
You get all puffed up.

SAM
You’re a pain in the ass.

MALLORY
Yes.

I love that because while all of the exploration led to some pretty awful things, and this idea that exploration has to mean conquering, I do believe in that drive forward, the perpetual momentum of "What happens next?" It should drive us, should always drive us, even as we relish what's here,even as we should relish moments and days and each other, we should always want what's next, I think. There's a fine line between needless ambition and reaching for the stars. I think, right now, I need to be doing a little more reaching.

And finally, yesterday was